


stop the suns from setting

by abcooper



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Star Wars Setting, F/F, Star Wars AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-17
Updated: 2018-03-25
Packaged: 2019-04-03 18:09:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14001699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abcooper/pseuds/abcooper
Summary: newly knighted Kara Danvers hasn't seen Lena since they were children together. Now, with Lena sent back into the heart of a civil war, Kara's first mission as a Jedi is to protect the girl she loved as a child





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Heartichoke](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heartichoke/gifts).



> This fic is for the amazing heartichoke, who gave me permission to do an AU for her prompt and maybe didn’t realize what she was letting herself in for. 
> 
> I've been struggling with it a ridiculous amount for something I DESPERATELY wanted to write, and my beta was finally like, "here's your problem - you've got a 50k fic outline in your head and you're trying to make it happen in 5k words." 
> 
> So I'm letting it get a bit longer then planned, and I'm posting this first bit so that heartichoke knows she is not abandoned and forgotten by me! ;)

Kara reaches for her braid, a nervous gesture built on the habit of eight years, and is surprised all over again when her fingers find nothing but short tufts of hair. She tucks them behind her ear to cover the misstep, although there’s no one in the hallway to see but her. It’s already been missing for a week—she wonders how long it will take her to get used to the change, and to everything it represents. She should find it easier to flow with change than she does—she’s not a padawan anymore. 

She squares her shoulders and moves forward through the gray halls. She’s been summoned to a council meeting, which means that she’s about to be assigned her first mission without Cat. She’s  _ trying  _ to be happy about it, but the long wide corridors of the temple feel shockingly empty without Cat’s muttering snarky comments at her side. Have they always been this somber? This imposing? 

She’s grateful for the sound of someone else’s footsteps, and then she feels a familiar presence in the force just a moment before Lena Luthor turns the corner. Kara takes a moment to drink her in. It’s been years since she’s seen Lena—not more than twice since they were crechelings together. Master Rhea was such a valued diplomat, she was always taking long-term missions off-planet, which meant Lena rarely made it back to the Padawan halls. 

She looks older, now—which makes sense, since she  _ is  _ older. She’s still beautiful, in that classic way that makes her almost as imposing as the temple itself. Her hair is clipped short, emphasizing the long planes of her face, the shadows under her eyes. Kara can feel the heaviness of her in the air—Lena is not hiding her grief well.

Well, Kara wouldn’t be either. Everyone has heard the story now of what happened to Master Rhea, of how Lena earned her knighthood. 

They come closer in the hallway, and Lena is so lost in thought that she still hasn’t noticed Kara’s presence—unusual for a Jedi, who ought to be aware of their surroundings at all times through the force. She looks preoccupied. Kara gives her another second, and then decides it’s more awkward to brush past an old acquaintance without acknowledgement than it is to interrupt.

“Lena,” she calls out, voice friendly. “It’s so wonderful to see you!” Lena starts; she seems to bolt back into the present, collecting herself quickly. Her face, startled for that split second, smooths rapidly back into an emotionless cold.

“Knight Danvers,” she nods. “My congratulations on your new rank.”

“You too,” Kara answers. Lena flinches almost imperceptibly, and Kara wants to smack herself. How do you congratulate somebody on the death of their master? “I’m so sorry for your loss,” she adds, and hopes Lena can hear the sincerity in her voice.

“Yes, well—thank you,” Lena answers, her voice clipped, and she brushes past, unceremoniously ending the conversation. Kara can sense her desperation to escape, and lets her go.

She puts the encounter out of her head for her meeting with the council. There’s no room in their chamber for distractions. Her place in the center of the room feels larger, emptier without Cat taking up half of it, but Kara’s getting used to that extra empty space, and she bows her head to the appropriate angle. Out of the corner of her eye she can see J’onn’s little smile, like he’s proud of her, and it bolsters her confidence. She knows how to interact with the council, knows her place here.

“Knight Danvers,” Yoda greets her with that enigmatic smile. “Treating you well, knighthood is?” 

“I am finding my footing, Master,” she answers honestly. “I’m ready for a mission, if you have one for me.” 

“That’s more our judgment to make than yours,” J’onn tells her dryly, but after years of listening to Cat bicker with him, Kara knows better than to take his disapproving words to heart. 

“Have a mission for you, we do,” Yoda confirms, ignoring J’onn’s words entirely. “What have you heard about Daxam?”

“I know that last year peace talks fell apart and it broke into civil war,” Kara answers hesitantly. She knows more than that, but the council is typically disdainful of the temple rumor mill. Is it better to be honest or to be respectful?

“It’s alright, Knight Danvers—you won’t say anything we haven’t already heard,” Plo Kloon tells her gently, and Kara nods.

“Alright. Then I know that Master Rhea was there negotiating peace, and was killed by a rebel group. I know that Le- Padawan Luthor was forced into hiding, and that over the next months she was able to talk both sides into renegotiating a standstill. She earned her knighthood from it.” 

“That’s the gist of it,” J’onn agrees with a heavy sigh. He and Rhea had clashed frequently, Kara suddenly remembers. That’s from the rumor mill, too—she’d never seen it in person, but everyone knew how openly Rhea disdained J’onn’s integrationist politics.  

“Falling into peril, the peace declaration is,” Yoda informed her. “Send Knight Luthor back, we must, but fear for her well-being, we do.” 

“You’re sending Lena back?” Kara repeats, stunned enough to momentarily forget that she has no permission to use that name. Lena will always be what she is called in Kara’s mind— the name that represents the beautiful, brilliant girl Kara had followed around the creche as a child. Kara can’t believe they would be cruel enough to send her back into the warzone that had produced her master’s grave—can’t they see how shadowed she is by grief?

“It’s got to be her,” J’onn says grimly. “She’s put long months into forging relationships there. The peace is too precarious to waste time starting from scratch. Don’t forget that she’s a Jedi Knight—she can handle her emotions.” 

“We hope,” Eeth Koth mutters under his breath, and Yoda turns to glare at him, rapping his stick one against the floor in reprobation.

“Her brother, Knight Luthor is not,” he states sharply. “Nonetheless, concerned for her, we are. It is a large sacrifice that we ask. Accompany her, you will, Knight Danvers.”   


“I’m… going with her?” Kara squeaks. 

“Knight Luthor knows the situation on Daxam intimately, and she is well equipped to act as mediator for them,” J’onn tells her. “But it’s poised to tip back into a warzone at any moment, and fighting has never been her strong suit. You are there as her protector, essentially."

_ Lena’s protector.  _ Kara counts in groups of four to steady her breath. J’onn is looking at her like he knows something is up, and Yoda  _ always  _ looks at  _ everybody _ like he knows something is up, but Kara keeps her breath even and releases her turmoil—she will meditate on it later. This is a good first mission for her. She’s an  _ excellent  _ fighter, it will play to her strengths and let her follow a more experienced knight’s lead until she gets a feel for being on her own in the field.

“I accept my assignment and thank you, masters,” she says formally, giving a slight bow.

“Hmph,” Yoda mutters. “Leave tomorrow, you will. A long flight to Daxam, it is—plenty of time then will you have for Knight Luthor to brief you.” 

They let her leave without much ceremony, sending her off to pack. A night isn’t much preparation time, but it’s standard for knights without padawans. She’ll have to get used to it.

It’s a  _ good _ assignment, Kara reiterates to herself as she goes back to her quarters. It’s exactly her skill set, if punching people counts as a skill set, and Kara thinks it does. Still, her mind is buzzing like it’s full of insects, and after a moment of hesitation, she grabs a heavy cloth bag out of the corner and turns around.

It’s late evening and the temple gardens are still highly populated, with even a few crechelings still running around playing a chasing game. Kara finds a quiet spot around the corner of the east wing and sets up her easel, switching on its virtual canvas. A piece of paper shimmers into view, and she dumps paint onto her canvas—reds and blues and blacks, because she is out of anything related to yellow.

Cat taught her this method of meditating, when Kara was 14 and carrying too many burdens that she didn’t know how to put down. She reaches out with her senses and focuses on getting the world around her onto paper. She starts with what’s around her, focusing in on the easy low humming of the grass, the colorful tumult of temple life walled off behind her, the children getting tired but pushing along in their game with gleeful stubbornness. Slowly, she lets her mind branch out, focusing on the sense of color, of shape, as she reads the lines of traffic circling beneath them through Coruscant’s middle levels, and then pulls herself back into detail, into the mold spores growing along the roots of a temple vine, the warning cry it sends out to its fellows, the worms in the soil beneath it. 

She focuses on the fury of life that surrounds her, on how she can translate it to her canvas, until everything else is pushed out and she is encompassed by the living force. She loses track of herself as a separate entity, finds herself as one pulsing point of light in the ever-changing rhythm of the universe.

Only then, at peace within the force, does she examine her own discontent. A mission with Lena—or rather, a mission with Knight Luthor, all grown up and complicated.

Kara was eight the first time she met Lena Luthor. Eight was the age when crechelings moved into mixed dormitories and started to interact with children who weren’t in their year. Lena, nine years old with her pointed chin and fiery eyes, had seemed very old and wise by comparison. Kara had been  _ captivated  _ by her.

It hadn’t been mutual. Kara’s not entirely sure that Lena knew who she was when they were young. Lena was eons ahead of the rest of their age-group when it came to technology, bolstered by a keen mind and a natural grasp on the unified force. To solidify the gap, Lena’s brother Lex was sixteen and a padawan. He and his friends doted on Lena, let her hang around with them in the workshop fixing speeders. There was never a reason for Lena to so much as glance Kara’s way. 

It wasn’t as though Kara’s feelings were particularly hurt. She had other friends. But somehow the steady pulse of Lena in the force called out to her, distracted her and mesmerized her. There was something about Lena’s presence that even as a child, Kara recognized as  _ beauty.  _ Kara would wander by the temple’s garage and hear her easy laughter, see the smear of grease across her cheek as she argued with Lex about wiring, and long for something she couldn’t put a name to. For  _ attachment _ .

And then when Lex was eighteen, and Lena was eleven, and Kara was ten, Lex fell to the dark side. 

He was jealous—that was the whisper around the temple. He’d come second to Clark one too many times, had let his resentment fester until it led him down the wrong path. Nobody  _ really  _ knew what happened. (Maybe Lena did.)

Kara certainly never heard more detail than that. All she knew was that she attended Lex’s funeral pyre, in a small frightened huddle with the rest of the creche, and watched the fire burn away something that Lena wasn’t going to get back.

Now, seeing Lena in the hallway with her face shadowed by another loss, Kara understands her better than she did as a child. She understands herself better now, too. 

Kara has four biological children. They were born when she was fifteen, and they aren’t hers, not really, they’re just from her eggs. After Krypton exploded, the survivors reached out to the temple; they needed all the genetic diversity they could get, if they were going to continue as a species.

Kara donated. She has no connection to those children, and no connection to Krypton either really, but she feels their presence all the same, feels their joy echoing through the force when they are happy. She reaches for them often, almost an instinct. They have become a centering presence; the living force is found through connection, after all.

Lena may have been Kara’s first unrequited love, but she isn’t her last. There's a kind of strength, Kara has found, in accepting that and loving people anyways.

Her meditation lasts through the night. Kara releases it at last, reluctantly, when she feels the plants around her start preparing for the return of the sun, and falls back into her individuality.

“Good morning,” she says. Lena is next to her—has been for at least an hour, but her presence hadn’t been disturbing in the least, and it’s not until now that Kara thinks to question it.

“Good morning,” Lena answers hesitantly. “I like your painting—it’s beautiful.”

Kara glances at it, smiles tolerantly. It’s not beautiful—it’s layered and haphazard, a journey that was never meant to lead to any final destination. But it’s nice of Lena to say so all the same. 

“Thanks,” she says. “It’s Coruscant, I suppose.”   


“Through the living force. I could tell.” There’s a bit of wistfulness in Lena’s voice as she adds, “it’s not the side of the force I’m most in tune with, it’s nice to see it through someone else’s eyes.” 

“We all have our own perspectives,” Kara allows. “Master Grant - Cat - taught me to do this on my first mission. It’s always helped me ground myself.”

“I feel the same way fixing engines sometimes,” Lena says. “Just letting the force guide me through something - it’s a different kind of meditation. Nothing our creche-masters would have approved of, but effective.” There’s a wicked little tilt to her lips as she says it, and Kara knows she and Lena are thinking of the same memory - Lena had probably driven Master Po Tena to an early retirement when they were children.

“You weren’t really keen on earning their approval anyways,” Kara says, and they share a smile.

“I’m sorry I was short with you yesterday,” Lena says abruptly. She turns and looks out at the sky, where the beginnings of dawn are just getting strong enough to show against the constant artificial light of Coruscant. “The council had just informed me of our mission, and I was struggling to accept it. I am not looking forward to going back to Daxam, although I accept it as my duty.”

There are hard lines drawn along Lena’s face. She is tense. Gently, Kara leans over and nudges Lena’s shoulder with her own.

“I’m glad I can go with you,” she says softly. “We’re going to get you through this.” Lena doesn’t answer, but she pushes back, so that their sides are pressed together. They stand and watch the sunrise in silence, and then Kara goes to pack.

 


	2. Chapter 2

The thing about being Cat’s padawan was, Cat had sway with the elite. It was just something about the way she walked, the way she talked - she could make herself a queen in anybody’s eyes. The majority of their assigned missions were among that set, and that meant they usually traveled among luxury.

This mission to Daxam is different. The temple has booked them passage on a small trade ship, the only ship going anywhere close to Daxam while it's war-torn and broke. They're going to borrow a shuttle to go the last 400 light years while the trade ship continues onward to Ch’burrak, a nearby planetary hub. 

The man who shows them to their room isn't a service worker, and he isn't quietly deferential - instead he hits on Lena with cheerful lewdness, taking it in good grace when she rolls her eyes and shoves ahead of him in the hallway.

“Might swing the other way, I'm getting that vibe off of her,” he tells Kara in confidential tones, and she nods and tries to pretend she has any idea what his colloquialism means. “Gives you a good shot, since you're gonna be getting  _ very  _ intimate these next few weeks.”

“Sorry, what?” she finally has to ask, and then he stops and keys a door open with a practiced swipe, and she figures out for herself what he means by ‘intimate’.

It's not a room. It's a closet that someone has shoved a bed into, and  _ not _ a bed that can easily fit two people. By the time they both put their luggage in the room, there won't really even be room for both of them to stand at the same time.

“There's a shared ‘fresher down the hall you two can use, and the mess is pretty much open cycle-round, but you’ll get hotter food if you eat at shift changes,” he tells them.

“Thanks so much, Mr -” Kara attempts the courtesy, since Lena still looks a little like throttling this man is on the table as an option.

“Jarg,” he tells her. “No mister necessary, young lady - but you come find me if you want some company, alright? Any time!”

“I will,” Kara tells him, and feels a little better that she's made a friend on the ship.

Jarg closes the door as he leaves, and Lena sits on the bed, which makes enough room for Kara to stay standing.

“You know what he meant by company, right?” she asks dryly, and Kara blinks at her for a moment before objecting.

“No he didn't - he was hitting on you, not me!” she defends, because she doesn't like the way Lena’s looking at her like she thinks Kara is some naive country bumpkin. It's just so obvious to Kara that no one would possibly hit on her when she's at Lena’s side- that next to all of Lena’s grace and certainty, Kara comes off as a clumsy child.

But maybe that's not as obvious to Lena who, after all, doesn't get to look at herself all the time.

“Anyways, I'm going to go find a public window to watch us take off,” Kara says, firmly changing the subject. “Do you want to come?” There’s nothing else immediate to do, and she likes watching take-off when she has the opportunity.

“No, I want to find the engine room,” Lena answers. “I want to introduce myself to the head engineer. I can feel that we aren't operating at peak efficiency, I’d like to take a look if it doesn't offend anybody.”

Kara reaches out with the force, trying to find what Lena is sensing. She can feel the life around them bustling, busy, it's usual delightful mess of feelings and growth. And then somewhere under there is the hum of the rest of the world, quietly going about its work to support all that loud screaming life.

Is that the engine? It's a little different than the background sound that Kara is used to on ships…. weaker. Or just off, somehow? As Kara focuses on it it becomes stronger to her senses, and she thinks she might understand what Lena is sensing, but she never would have noticed it if Lena hadn't pointed it out to her. She eyes her companion with respect.

“You're as good as we all knew you'd be,” she says. It’s silly to feel proud of Lena, when Kara can’t take any responsibility for her, but she does. She’d always known that Lena was great. There's a burst of emotion from Lena in response, something hot and cold and painful, but Lena only smiles.

“Thank you,” she says, and gestures for Kara to lead the way out.

She thinks of offering to help, but since the truth is that she’d be entirely useless in an engine room, Kara makes her way to the center of life’s cacophony, using its noise to guide her flawlessly through narrow metal hallways. When she finds it, it's in the mess hall - naturally. She's pleased to see that a large window makes up one entire wall of the space, and she's not the only one who's come to watch the take off. About a dozen people who must make up the ship’s off-duty crew are clustered at the long table closest to the window, passing a drink back and forth. It’s brown and murky, and Kara can’t guess whether it’s alcoholic or caffeinated. 

“Mind if I join you?” she asks, and a Dressellian woman in coveralls scoots over to make room for her, giving her a good natured grin.

“Sure - you must be one of our passengers, eh?”

“Kara,” Kara says, and holds out her hand palm up in the Dressellian gesture of greeting. The woman grins and makes her hand into a fist, pressing it briefly against Kara’s fingers to complete the gesture.

“Branno,” she says, and there are a few sounds to the name that Kara knows she won’t be able to replicate, but the majority of it is pronounceable for a Kryptonian. “You want some caff? It’s lousy, but it’ll keep you up.”

“No thanks, I should try to sleep soon if I want to be on the right time-cycle for Daxam when we get there,” Kara says. Exhaustion is gnawing at her edges a little, from staying up all night the night before. She could banish it if she needed to; her record is 11 days straight awake, when she and Cat were protecting a royal entourage from a group of hired assassins, but it would be wise to get sleep while she can. She doesn’t know what kind of situation she and Lena will be walking into on Daxam.

“Right - our mysterious passengers into a war zone,” Branno says. “We don’t usually take passengers, you know?” The curiosity in her tone is harmless, and so are the ears now perked toward them from other table-members. Nobody is suspicious or looking to cause trouble - they just wonder about the change in their routine. Kara sticks to the prepared story. It’s not a  _ secret _ that the Jedi are mediating on Krypton - it just doesn’t need to be known by  _ everybody. _

“I have relatives there,” she says. “I want to check on them, I know things have been bad. Ships aren’t traveling in or out of Daxam anymore, your captain took pity and allowed us to book a ride. I’m grateful to him.”

“He’s always been a sucker for a sob story,” a man in coveralls says, grinning at her. “Y’all remember that twi’lek con-artist?” 

The conversation turns to inside jokes, and Kara is content to listen and enjoy the thrum of life. After a few minutes, there is a shiver through the ship as the engines start. Kara watches through the window as they lift off from Coruscant and leave it behind.

It’s going to take at least twelve days to get to Daxam. They’re going at hyperspeed, but the distance is vast, and the trade ship is small. It will have to go in bursts, and give the engine time to cool down in between. 

There’s not a lot to do in that time. Kara intends to rest, study Daxam’s history and politics, and make nice with the crew. She  _ hopes _ she’ll have the chance to get to know Lena a little better, but Lena doesn’t seem overly interested in being known.

She spends the first hour of hyperspace letting the crew regale her with stories, asking gentle questions. They’ve been traveling together for years, and they seem glad of a new audience for old stories. Kara likes them.

“Is there anywhere on this ship to work out?” she asks, when the appropriate opportunity comes up. “I mean - just to run around or stretch or anything.”

“Feeling cramped already?” a humanoid called Varzo asks teasingly. “Depends on what kind of exercise you’re into - those of us who can fit use the lanes of the cargo bay as a jogging track sometimes. And we do have a little rec center in the aft, which has got some weights in it.”

“More importantly, it’s got holovids,” Branno says, “if you want to join us in watching The Adventures of Arc Arcturus for the ninety-seventh time.”

Kara laughs. “Do you know, I’ve never seen it?” she says, and allows the gasps of amused shock. 

This is what she’s good at. It’s what she’s  _ always  _ been good at. Making friends anywhere she goes is a valuable skill, and it’s a nice reminder that she has more to bring to this mission than just hitting anyone who goes at Lena’s throat.

Still, she makes her excuses to her new friends, and heads back toward their room. When she gets there, she’s pleased to find that Lena is still absent. She has the reports on Daxam in her bag, and she wants to study them, but she thinks it would be kinder to do it when Lena can’t see. Settling herself comfortably on the small bed, Kara pulls up holos and begins familiarizing herself with important faces.

**

When she wakes up, she’s hazy for a moment about why. It’s so pitch black that she isn’t sure at first whether she’s opened her eyes or not, and it’s the force more than any of her physical senses that tell her the warm body pressed up against her is Lena Luthor.

She wakes up enough to remember why -  _ shared mission shared bed sleeping in a closet together -  _ and then Lena shifts, lets out a choked, pained sound, and Kara finally notices the black roiling emotion coming off of her.

“Hey!” Alarmed, she reaches out more with the force than with her physical body, and is bombarded by memories.

_ His face is contorted with grief and rage as he steps toward her, there is blood everywhere, her lightsaber is a heavy weight in her hand and she has a choice to make - she can take revenge for everything she’s lost or she can flee _

“Lena!” Kara is louder than she meant to be, but it does the trick. Lena jolts awake, slams herself upright, sharp breaths shuddering through her as the blackness of memory dissipates into something smaller and more controllable.

“Kara,” she says, and her voice is  _ almost  _ calm, “is everything alright?”

“You were having a nightmare,” Kara says gently, because Jedi don't hide from their feelings and she can do Lena the favor of refusing to enable her hiding. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“I - don't remember it,” Lena says a little distantly. “I'm sure it was about Daxam - going back before my grief has had time to heal is difficult for me, as I said.”

From what she's just seen, Kara is sure now that there's more going on than Lena is saying. Back in the comfort of her own mind, she recognizes the nightmare man from the holos she had been studying - his name is Mon El, and he's one of three current contenders for the Daxam throne.

She wants to push. But she suddenly realizes that Lena is  _ shaking _ .

“Lie back down,” she says gently, “come on,” and turns Lena toward her so they are facing each other on the small bed. She takes Lena’s hands into her own and intertwines their fingers. 

Lena’s eyes are wide in the dark, and she's still trembling. Frightened and defensive with all her walls up, she reminds Kara of an abused circus animal that she and Cat had rescued in an early mission. In fact -

“Did I tell you about the time Ms Grant and I kidnapped a Ganjuko out of a Kyrisian circus?” she asks, although she knows she hasn't - she and Lena haven't talked since they were children. 

“.... what?” Lena says, and Kara giggles.

“I was only thirteen, it was - maybe the first or second mission where I was allowed to wander on my own, and I followed some kids my own age into this tent, I didn't even know what it was. But they were beating up on this poor animal with electro-sticks to make him do all sorts of stupid things, like balance on a ball. I may have stood up and started yelling at them…. and i may have been forcibly removed by security,” Kara admits, abruptly remembering that parts of this story are embarrassing.

But Lena isn't trembling quite as much anymore. Instead she giggles a little, a gentle uncertain sound. “That sounds like you - defender of all things helpless, right from day one,” she says, and Kara is warmed to her soul that it sounds like that's how Lena remembers her. It's exactly how she'd like to be remembered, if she got to choose.

“Well, the police brought me back to Cat, and I didn't know her that well yet, I thought I was in a  _ world _ of trouble. But she just rolled her eyes and told me I needed to work on my sense of timing, and we waited until the middle of the night and went back and rescued him.”

“She must have been an amazing master,” Lena says wistfully, and Kara wonders if she should have gone a different direction with the conversation, but she's not sure there are any painless topics for Lena right now.

“She really was,” Kara confirms, and then decides that since the subject is sitting so heavily between them, it’s better off spoken. “Was Rhea? A good master, I mean.”

It's hard for Kara to believe she would have been. Rhea was…. an extremist.

Lena hesitates. “She…. believed in me,” she finally says. “After Lex, everybody at the temple looked at me like I had a countdown ticking over my head, like they were just waiting for me to fall. Rhea never doubted that I was meant to be a Jedi knight, even when I - I doubted it myself.” Her breath hitches, and Kara squeezes her hands a little, tries to ground her.

“I can't talk about this anymore  tonight,” Lena says a little pleadingly, like she thinks Kara might push her. She is shaking and fractured.

“Count with me,” Kara says. It's a command that goes back to when they were children together, first learning to meditate. She starts the first breathing sequence, and after a startled moment Lena joins in, following the pattern as easily as she had when they were younglings sitting in a circle together.

They're close in the dark, their breath intermingling as they run through the meditation exercise, their hands still clasped together. Slowly, Lena’s breathing eases until she is slumped against the mattress. Safety and warmth blur the lines between them as they sink into sleep.

**

When Kara wakes up, there is a warm body pressed against her. It's not a familiar sensation, and the fact that it’s Lena -  _ Lena _ \- is enough to wake her up fully, but she can't bring herself to move. Lena’s mouth is pressed against Kara’s collarbone; her breath is hot on Kara’s skin. Their legs have become tangled, and Kara has an arm thrown over Lena, has her hand pressed against the small of Lena’s back where her sleep shirt has ridden up.

It’s intimate and unfamiliar, and Kara’s breath catches in her throat.

She must shift, or maybe her emotions are just getting loud, because a moment later Lena’s eyes flutter open as well. She takes a moment to take in her surroundings, and then she backs up just enough to smile at Kara.

“Hey,” she murmurs, her voice hoarse with sleep, and she doesn’t seem in any hurry to untangle their legs, so Kara pulls on some undiscovered boldness within herself and doesn’t shift away.

“Hey yourself,” she answers, and moves her hand up to brush Lena’s hair out of her face, tucking it behind her ear. Lena goes a bit pink, and then she brings her head forward again, tentatively reclaiming her spot against Kara’s shoulder. Kara takes the hint and puts her arm back around Lena - hand  _ above _ fabric this time - and rubs soothing circles along her spine. “Not a morning person?” she asks gently, and feels Lena’s smile.

“Not when I don’t have to be. Which is rare.”

They stay like that for a few minutes, Lena buried against her while Kara pets her back and tries to wrap her mind around the fact that they’re  _ cuddling _ , that Lena seems to be relishing it. Every trace of the darkness that had hovered over her in her sleep is gone. In its place is a relaxed contentment that is almost enough to lull Kara back to sleep. Lena is enjoying her touch like a pampered cat. 

Finally,reluctantly, Lena pulls back, and Kara removes her hand at once, doubly careful not to overstep when she’s so unsure what the boundaries are. 

“Thank you for taking care of me last night,” Lena says gravely. Her eyes are very solemn, almost anxious, as they search Kara’s own.

“I’m glad I could. I want to be here for you,” Kara tells her honestly.

"I might really need that," Lena admits. "I wasn't at first, but - I'm really glad they sent you with me, Kara." The admission sits heavy between them for a moment, and then Lena stretches, groans as she is limited by the small space. "Is there any caff on this ship?"

"I might know a place," Kara says teasingly. "Go take first turn with the 'fresher and I'll show you around." 

  
  



End file.
